


Bread-Based Religions & Other Philosophies

by lonelywalker



Category: The Art of Fielding - Chad Harbach
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Christmas, Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-18
Updated: 2014-12-18
Packaged: 2018-03-02 02:21:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2796152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lonelywalker/pseuds/lonelywalker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Christmas at Westish College is a magical experience for Owen. Going to a dinner party with his boyfriend the president? Less so.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bread-Based Religions & Other Philosophies

**Author's Note:**

  * For [leftwiches](https://archiveofourown.org/users/leftwiches/gifts).



> Happy holidays! Many thanks to my kind beta [Queeshmael](http://www.archiveofourown.org/users/Queeshmael).

A fairytale was woven in the summer, after the anguish of the late days of spring. Owen imagined it while he sat by Guert’s hospital bed as May ended, mostly as a wry joke then, but he’d told it in earnest as the days grew longer. It was the tale of how Owen Dunne and Guert Affenlight had fallen in love. Not a true story precisely, but a good story, and one that more than enough people wanted to believe.

The story was this: that Guert, having been felled by a sudden heart attack and only saved by the nighttime intervention of a confused, wandering Henry Skrimshander, had spent weeks in Owen’s company while he recovered. Owen had read to him and sat with him and made him go for walks with the beautiful husky they’d acquired, and somewhere in there they’d become lovers. A sick man could be vulnerable to unconventional charms, after all. Probably few people wanted to linger on the details, but it was enough of a story that he and Guert could be seen together, could hold hands in public and go out to dinner. And, ultimately, it was enough of a story to let Guert keep his job.

Owen, Mike, and Pella had wrung the whole, real truth from Guert eventually. In the first few days after the heart attack, Guert had been in no shape to lie convincingly, and Pella was soon ready to pummel the trustees one by one, in addition to the parents of every student in the entire college. Guert might not have cared at all by that point: he could have died, so what was a little resignation? But the rest of them did. “Fuck _that_ ,” Pella said. “No one fires an Affenlight. And we’re not letting him resign, either. That might really kill him.”

They’d all been surprised, though, by the swell of sentiment that rose up among students, alumni, and trustees when it came to Guert. Fundraising had been in a slump, but news of Guert’s poor health (and, for a time, rumored demise) provoked renewed interest. Owen checked in with Mrs. McCallister every morning, finding new stacks of cards and letters, and that was without even logging on to the presidential e-mail account.

“Under the circumstances,” Dean Melkin said, fidgeting and focusing on the ceiling of the hospital room, “we’ve decided to postpone any possible disciplinary action. The most important thing is for you to get well.”

Guert, when Owen finally told him about the revised edition of their relationship, smiled: “So much effort, just so I can hold your hand.”

“And keep your job.”

“My job… If I can still do it at all.”

After the hospital, Guert returned to Scull Hall, which was familiar and as close to the office as anyone could get, although for the first few weeks Owen made him take the creaky old maintenance elevator. They’d continued the process of buying the Bremens’ old house, and in July Mike and Pella moved in there, taking Henry with them, which was better than leaving him alone in Phumber. 

As for the job, Guert was more than capable of sitting at a desk for a few hours, particularly with Mrs. McCallister babying him more than usual. Owen, back in his regular classes, dropped by most days for lunch and to prize Contango away from the warm spot on the rug. He kept a thick file of Guert’s medical records, made sure Guert took his pills twice a day, and accompanied Guert on his visits to the cardiologist, asking questions and making notes where Guert would have nodded and agreed and taken none of it to heart. 

“I don’t like hospitals,” was the constant refrain, “and these specialists look younger than you do.”

“But they’re specialists,” Owen told him, a hand on his arm, “and if you don’t like hospitals, they’re telling you exactly what you need to do to stay out of them.”

Guert complained about Tokyo too, and specifically its lack of one Owen Dunne, who had been scheduled to spend a year there redeeming the benefits of his prestigious fellowship. The complaints had stopped as soon as Guert was well enough to truly appreciate all the benefits of Owen spending every night wrapped around him.

And Genevieve… She wasn’t surprised, exactly, and she didn’t jump on a plane to slap Guert hard across the face. But she shook her head when Owen spoke to her over Skype. “I hope you know what you’re doing, O.”

“He’s better than Jason,” Owen said. “His heart’s more likely to break than mine.”

So now, in the darkest, shortest days of winter, the fairytale had passed into Westish history and legend. In the pre-Christmas rush of exams and travel preparations, no one much cared about the school president and his boyfriend. And, snuggled up in a nest of blankets in the frigid early morning, Owen was very tempted to think that no one would much care if they simply stayed there for the day. Maybe for the week.

“This wouldn’t happen if you’d just let me turn up the thermostat,” Guert said. It was an old, comfortable argument.

“And heat the entire building? Hardly anyone’s working today. It would be a horrific waste.”

“Frostbite will lead to a horrific waste of your toes. This isn’t California.”

He’d grown to love bickering with Guert or, rather, Guert bickering with him. They’d argued about literature and philosophy often enough in the spring, but Guert had shied away from any more personal subject, perhaps concerned about offending him or driving him away. Finally being able to spend so much time together, free from secrecy and locked doors, hadn’t stopped Guert from gazing at him with the same utter adoration… but it had given voice to the thoughts he’d held back before.

Owen experimentally thrust out a foot from under the blankets. The results were not promising. He snatched it back, pressing cold toes against Guert’s shin. “And yet you keep saying the cold doesn’t bother you.”

“We Wisconsinites are made of sterner stuff.” Guert kissed his jaw, fingers lightly stroking Owen’s soft belly, as if to make a point. “I spent my childhood in two feet of snow, mucking out cowsheds before dawn. Besides, Contango will file a complaint if I don’t get up soon.”

“He just wants to play.” Contango might be far from a puppy, but in the last few days he’d spent every possible moment burrowing into the heaps of snow that had accumulated on the lawns of the Small Quad, while Guert sat on the base of the Melville statue and chatted with students, and probably desperately craved a cigarette.

During his very first Westish winter, Owen had made Mike drive to Door County, where he and Henry loaded up the trunk with blankets and hot water bottles and other vital supplies, as if preparing for an Antarctic expedition. Or possibly just for the icy winds that came off Lake Michigan at the end of the year, cutting right through the drafty old walls of Phumber Hall.

He’d been miserable that Christmas, even bundled up in layers of fleece blankets over yin-yang pajamas, sipping hot chocolate with an illicit space heater whirring away on the rug. Genevieve had expected him to come home, but the prospect of staying had seemed, for some few delusional weeks, like a good idea. The holiday wasn’t very long, and Genevieve almost always worked, which would have left him feeling like a child back in his old room again. By staying he could avoid hours in airports and catch up on reading and keep Henry company. And… he’d barely allowed himself to admit the hope, but he _had_ hoped Jason would smile and grasp his hand and invite him to Chicago.

Jason had disappeared with only the beep of a text message, and the campus had frozen over. Winter always seemed so idyllic in photographs: the fluffy hillsides of snow, a scarf artfully thrown over one shoulder. But this was almost unimaginably worse. 

“It’s not so bad.” Henry had seemed pleased to finally find a subject he could expound on at great length, after battling through a semester of ill-judged history and English papers. “You get used to it.”

He’d thought about a warm body a lot then. In the fall he hadn’t valued it enough, sharing a bed with Jason. So, in the winter, he had even considered whether there might be some way to snuggle up with Henry. Not for sexual reasons – God, no – but because Henry shrugged off the cold so well, with so little evidence of fat or muscle on him, that he must surely contain some inner furnace.

Instead, Henry took him to the VAC, which was also old and drafty and required skidding along multiple paths and dodging impromptu snowball fights just to get there. But facing off against the batting machine brought some life and heat back into his body, once his hands stopped feeling so numb he could barely grip the bat. It was good to hit something too, even if he couldn’t strike out at the cold itself, at Jason for not being there, or at himself for being too stupid to just go to California and see the sun occasionally.

That Christmas was three years ago now, and if not exactly a world away – Phumber was still just across the alley – at least not the reality of this December holiday. What had Guert been doing that December? Lying across his couch with a book and a glass of scotch, toasty warm in a building radiating wasteful heat, probably not feeling lonely or inadequate at all. He might even have had a girlfriend back then – Owen hadn’t asked, but it seemed natural for Guert to have had _someone_. Guert might love his quiet and solitude, but he was far too attractive in far too many ways to spend much time alone.

A lot could happen in three years, but so much of it seemed like wasted time now. Time they could have spent together. But the Guert of three years ago had never looked at that younger Owen Dunne and fallen in love. And the Owen of three years ago could barely cope with sitting around in his pajamas sipping hot chocolate, let alone having a real, adult relationship.

“I’ll see you later,” Guert said. “Probably they’ll let me off early for good behavior. We can have a snack before the party.”

The party. Owen’s least favorite subject of the past few weeks. “I still think I should stay home. Henry can come over. We’ll play checkers.”

This was a familiar argument too, but one with a bit more pressing haste. “Everyone else is bringing their partners. You’re the one always forwarding me e-mails about being out and proud, although out as _what_ I’m still not sure.”

“Everyone already knows about us. I’m just not coveting the opportunity to stand around with a room full of wealthy conservative white people and bite my tongue on every issue lest you get fired. Pella would be much better. She looks stunning in eveningwear. She can carry conversations without insulting people…”

“On occasion I doubt that you’ve actually met my daughter,” Guert said. “Besides, she’s going with our new assistant athletic director. And I would like my handsome young paramour on my arm.”

Owen sighed. “Fine. If only because you need someone to stop you drinking.” In some ways he’d preferred it when their relationship had been entirely secret and behind closed doors. Living with Guert and holding his hand in public was wonderful… but it carried with it the obligations of any partner of the college president. “I’ll need to borrow some of your cufflinks. Maybe a tie.”

“Perfect.” Guert pulled himself up, rolling back the blankets as he did so.

Owen yelped and burrowed further down. He should’ve worn pajamas, never mind how nice it was to be naked with Guert. _Without_ Guert, he was just cold. “You could stay for a while. It’s early…” He stroked an exploratory hand along Guert’s thigh, moved it downwards.

Guert laughed, leaned over and kissed him. “After the party.”

“You’ll be exhausted and I’ll be drunk.”

“And we have the entire Christmas break to spend arguing about the thermostat.”

Guert was still gone by the time Owen dragged himself out of bed and brewed up some hot chocolate, checking that the correct day had been emptied from Guert's pill box. Guert might slip up occasionally when it came to a few beers with Mike, but at least he seemed resolved to stay alive these days, having had a taste of what the opposite might be like.

How much Guert had celebrated when he was alone was an unresolved question, but he’d certainly thrown himself into the Christmas spirit this year, setting off with Mike a couple of weeks ago to pick up trees for the apartment and downstairs in Scull Hall. Owen had been picking pine needles off the floor and Contango ever since. He’d helped decorate the trees, of course, all the while protesting that the glorification of a Christian holiday in public spaces on campus discriminated against students from other religious backgrounds.

“It's nice to brighten the place up,” Guert had said. “Some lights, some tinsel. The kids who have to stay here for the holiday love it."

“You have no idea if they’re Jewish or Muslim or Hindu…"

“I have _some_ idea. Wisconsin’s overwhelmingly Christian.”

Owen stretched to balance a star on the top. “Don't you think the local students are exactly the ones most likely to have gone home? Sooty's still here, and he's Buddhist."

“What are you claiming to be?”

“I abstain from all bread-based religions. Although I also doubt you’ll be in the chapel on Christmas morning.”

Guert slipped his arms around Owen: something else that might be disapproved of in public spaces by adherents of various religions. “Mom used to drag us all to Midnight Mass. I always fell asleep on the pew.”

“And you did the same to Pella?”

“I took her a couple of times when she was little. Only at a civilized hour though. Everyone loves carol singing.”

Owen had seen photos of Pella’s earliest Christmases, unearthed from Guert’s closets and filing cabinets, from back when her mother was still alive. His own photos, eerily similar in terms of trees and gaudy wrapping paper, were some of the few he had of himself with his father. Mike had looked over their shoulders and said something the same. Guert and Henry’s childhood Christmases were buried somewhere in family archives.

He bundled up and trudged across the Quad to the dining hall. Classes weren’t officially over till the end of the day, but many students had already fled to homes and airports throughout the U.S. and abroad. The turnout for breakfast was meager. Henry was sitting by himself, shoveling in a heaped bowl of cornflakes after, presumably, an early round of bleacher-climbing. It was too exhausting to even think about. And this was probably his second bowl. Owen assembled a more modest plate and took a seat. “Season’s greetings,” he said cheerfully. “No last-minute plans to head home?”

Henry shook his head, swallowing. “Sophie wants to come _here_. SDSU doesn’t let anyone stay on between semesters, and our family during the holidays gets pretty... uncomfortable.”

“Racist Uncle Syndrome?”

“Yeah… Lots of people, lots of beer.”

Owen speared a flapjack. “So invite her. We’re all doing Christmas at the house anyway. She can stay in one of the spare rooms.”

“I saw President Affenlight this morning,” Henry said. “He told me the same thing. But the Greyhound trip here is really long and horrible and stinky. How about your mom?”

“Working. Reporting on all the holiday cheer. Trying to avoid the fact she once spent an entire evening hitting on my boyfriend. You’re okay looking after Contango tonight?”

“Sure.”

Owen munched contemplatively. “I wish we didn’t have to go. It’s a ridiculous event, such a waste of money wining and dining people who have big enough bank accounts to buy this entire college. We get all dressed up just to be polite and make small talk. For an entire evening!"

Henry made sympathetic noises around his cereal.

“I can’t believe I actually used to fantasize about going to cocktail receptions and dinners with Guert, although I’m sure everyone else at those events wishes they were with him. I get to watch him charm everyone in the room, wearing his gorgeous suit. And I get to go home with him too. All I wanted from any relationship was to be acknowledged. Now, though... I wish we could just _stay_ at home."

“I thought you liked talking to people,” Henry said, which could hardly be denied at this point in the conversation.

“But this isn’t going to be talking. It’s all about avoiding insulting anyone while they whisper behind my back about how scandalous it all is. I might as well just talk politics. Get them to donate a new, energy-efficient sports complex with a rainbow color scheme.” Given the way some of Guert’s environmental proposals had actually passed, this wasn’t completely crazy. The VAC did badly need a renovation. And the Harpooners could do with attracting new players of all genders and sexualities.

“Are you done with those?” Pella drew out a chair and plopped down between them, eying their still-occupied dishes. She was wearing her grotty dishwashing jeans and hoodie, apron over the top. “I’ve been here since five and it hasn’t gotten any warmer. So eat up and I’ll wash up and we can all go home.”

Henry drew his cereal bowl closer to his chest. “It seems pretty warm.”

“Yeah? You practically have steam coming off you. I’m surprised you don’t have hypothermia.” She gave Owen an appraising look. “My dad off on another Arctic exploration?”

“He has his phone. And the dog. He’s fine.” Most of their conversations in the last six months had been, in one way or another, about the same thing.

She reached under his fork and stole a pancake. “I know he’s fine. I just don’t like him being alone. Affenlights do stupid things when they’re alone.”

Owen smiled and patted her arm. “You both do plenty of stupid things in company too, believe me. Which may be good entertainment tonight.”

“Ha! My dad basically exists to make us all look like yokels by comparison. Mike is genuinely petrified. There’s a whole class issue going on inside his head. It’s fascinating. Someone should write a paper.”

“I assume everyone’s aware Guert spent eighteen years of his life shoveling actual bullshit?”

“Which was good practice for his current job. But no, they think he sprang into being in the Westish library basement. Just like we’re all pretending the guy we’ve pretty much dedicated the college to didn’t write one novel about gay marriage and circlejerks, and another about incest and murder.”

“All values we hope to espouse here at Westish,” Owen said solemnly. “Well, one of them anyway.”

The ground floor of Scull Hall was decorated such that one might have expected Guert to be dressed as Santa in his grotto. Christmas cards, most of them brightly secular, hung from strings threaded along the walls and over doorways, with a tree by Mrs. McCallister’s desk. A small knitted snowman stood alongside her stationery.

“Owen, dear!” The woman herself appeared bearing mugs. “I’m so glad you’re here. I need a student to try this.”

Owen was caught between asking _try what?_ and _why a student?_ when she produced a flagon of a murky pink that globbed into a much brighter mug: HOME IS WHERE THE CAT IS. “Is this… punch?”

“Haven’t you ever tried my Christmas punch before? You poor boy. I’ve been trying a new recipe.”

In the spring, Owen had regarded Mrs. McCallister with great caution, knowing her soft spot for Guert as well as the fact that her demographic – older, religiously active – was generally even less likely than most to approve of a gay interracial May-September relationship going on in her very building. But her approach had generally been to ignore the relationship altogether, perhaps regarding Owen as some kind of live-in TA who was looking after Guert following his hospital stay. She’d certainly given him enough pamphlets and phone numbers and tips on what her various relatives had been through. Only once had she mentioned a gay distant cousin, and that with a certain vagueness, so that Owen hadn’t been able to grasp her point in bringing up the subject at all.

He lifted the mug to his lips as she watched expectantly.

The punch was richly sweet and fruity, with something that might have been a stray cranberry almost choking him. He coughed. “It’s good.”

“Mm, needs more pomegranate juice, I think. Where _are_ the students today?”

Owen had never seen many students in Scull Hall at the best of times, but maybe Pella would look in. “Is Guert free?”

“Except for that dog of his.” Mrs. McCallister absently brushed eraser crumbs from her desk. “It’s not hygienic, having that beast lying around, shedding everywhere. Here, take him some of this. You never feed him enough.”

Assuming she meant Guert rather than Contango, Owen took the other mug and nudged open the door with his shoulder.

The blast of heat inside Guert’s office had become familiar lately: Guert turned up the thermostat when he went in to work, and Mrs. McCallister boosted it even higher whenever she got in, as though Guert’s heart was likely to freeze over. The office was similarly adorned with cards, new ones every day, and Guert hadn’t been wearing his full suit for a week. His jacket was over his chair back, tie rolled up in a drawer somewhere no doubt, in the event of some emergency formality. And if he was only reading a stack of holiday greetings in front of him, he certainly still looked the part of the diligent college president.

Contango, curled up on the rug, raised his head a little as if to impart the impression that he would’ve lunged at any suspicious intruder, and merely gave Owen a tail-wag and a whine.

Guert went one better, rising to take a mug from him. “Punch?”

“Apparently.”

“Mm.” Guert ventured a sip, pushing the door closed. “I’ve tasted the past five incarnations, and this still doesn’t have any alcohol in it.”

Owen moved closer. “We’re all in a massive teetotal conspiracy against you, President Affenlight.”

“That’s what I thought. I’ll be smashed after one glass of wine tonight.”

“We should all be so lucky.”

Owen nuzzled his jaw and kissed him, the punch sickly-sweet on their lips, arms tight around each other. Not so long ago they’d spent their evenings together on the love seat, drinking coffee and reading plays, the blinds closed, the door locked. Now he could see the light-gray sky beyond the windows, the footsteps marked out in the snow, the frosty wreath some football player had planted on Herman Melville’s head.

The door squeaked ajar. “Guert, Admissions says they need your signature on those papers before the end of the day…” Mrs. McCallister had seen them like this enough times not to be shocked. Or, at least, not shocked that they were doing it. She cleared her throat. “ _Perhaps_ Owen could take that lazy dog out for a while? Let you get some work done?”

As if Contango were the reason for Guert’s holiday slacking-off. Owen clinked mugs with Guert and chugged down the rest of the punch. He might need the sugar high to get through to the party. “I’ll take him. He can help me pick out a tie.”

Contango, however, was in the mood for more frolicking first. Let him out of Scull for a second and off he went to pester some freshpersons building a snowman across the Quad.

By the time Guert came upstairs in the late afternoon, Owen had showered (again), shaved (for the first time in a week), and spent ten minutes deliberating over Guert’s tie collection (with which Contango was no help at all). He’d opted for Harpooner navy and was reading on the couch when Guert appeared. 

Guert was naturally _always_ dressed for formal events, barring perhaps some cufflinks and shoes polished to the highest possible shine. There was some casualwear amid his closets and drawers, but other than during the summer he rarely had the opportunity to wear it. Even when they went to Door County, shopping or to a movie, Guert would be in a suit. “I always run into the students,” he reasoned. “And I get better service.”

“You look very handsome,” Guert said when Owen stood and brushed off his jacket for the tenth time. “We should take a photo for your mother.”

“My mother knows how handsome I am. But we can take one of both of us, if you like.”

“For your Twitter thing?”

Owen slipped out his phone. “You know what Twitter is, Guert. No need to append ‘thing’ to every website.”

He and Loondorf had been working all semester to expand the Harpooners’ social media presence with the help of Sarah X. Pessel, who was doing something similar for the college in general. Having a particularly photogenic president didn’t hurt at all. If only Starblind were still around…

The reception was being held in a hall across town, as nowhere on campus was judged large or prestigious enough to host the trustees. Guert liked to quibble about this and to point out that perhaps a space _should_ be constructed or refurbished for that very purpose. But the demand for use of buildings and free lawns was high enough as it was, and Mike would have been apoplectic at any hint of plans to build on the sports fields.

“You could leave me in the car,” Owen said helpfully. “Last chance.”

Guert snapped off his seatbelt. “Never would I have thought _I’d_ be the one agitating that we go out in public together.”

“I know, and I’m glad you are. But there are more important things to discuss than the gay college president and his black boyfriend, and I don’t want to detract from those.”

“I’d love to hear what these more important things are,” Guert said. “Because I was anticipating an evening of complaints about how young people these days don’t have a good working knowledge of Homer in the original Greek.”

“So that’s why Mike and Pella are coming.”

“Mike and Pella are coming because… Yes, that’s precisely why they’re coming. And I’m told my daughter looks stunning in eveningwear.”

Owen plucked at Guert’s cuff. “Well, come on, Erastes. We have crowds to dazzle and amaze.”

In his teenage years, Owen had accompanied his mother to a few events of this nature: television galas and fundraisers, to which Genevieve could have taken any of a number of eligible bachelors. But she’d impressed on him the need to know how to dress well and meet new people and not make an awkward fool of himself in polite company. At fourteen or fifteen he’d still been lost, out of his element, but he’d faked his way through it all, confident that no one expected a thing from him other than to avoid making a scene.

“God, I had to go to these things when I was _eight_ ,” Pella said, sweeping a carrot stick through some hummus. “I think I liked them more than my dad did. Everyone thought I was so precocious and cute, and I had zero self-consciousness. Good times. Where’s that waiter with the champagne?”

From a summary look around the hall, he was the youngest person in the room. Even the wait staff seemed older than Mike and Pella. At least Guert wasn’t the oldest, not by far. Owen felt a strong admiration for the most wizened college trustees and donors, some of whom had to be in their nineties and yet still ventured outside on a winter evening. Probably Guert would be like that one day – was like that now – roaming around in a blizzard with Contango, as immune to external hazards as he was susceptible to internal, invisible ones.

The waiter appeared. Pella took a glass. Owen took two. The champagne was unsurprisingly excellent. Probably far too good to be using just to get drunk on, but sneaking out the back to light up a joint wasn’t going to be approved of either. Besides, the lighter would freeze.

“How did he learn to do this?” Owen asked, nodding toward the heart of the hall, where Guert was either utterly engaged or doing a remarkable job faking his smile amid handshakes and conversation.

Pella followed his gaze. “Barn dances?”

As the crowd nearest them parted, Mike Schwartz lumbered into view, taking a glass from Owen’s hand. “Thanks Buddha. Just escaped a group of little old ladies reminiscing about Christy Mathewson. They must all be a hundred and three.”

“You should go back,” Owen said. “That’s much better than our conversation.”

“I have to, if we’re going to up our funding next year.” Still, Mike looked hungrily at the food, none of which seemed sufficient to satisfy a Schwartzian appetite. “Duane says all women feel they have to look after me. Which hopefully means a new running track at the very least.”

“Aha!” Pella snapped her fingers. “That’s it. My father’s eternal attractiveness to women: they all want to look after him. And so do men, occasionally. Don’t say you don’t.”

Owen tipped up his glass, swallowing the dregs. _He looks after me too_ was the obvious thing to say, but that wasn’t quite right, was it?

He ventured into the fray.

The little audience gathered around Guert, just five or six people, were being held rapt by one of the stories Guert had tailored and polished – and possibly largely invented – precisely for this sort of occasion. Owen hadn’t heard it before, but the way Guert told it was far more important than the content itself, which was some faintly moral tale about a Chicago foundry worker who wrote poetry while a young Guert Affenlight served him drinks. 

These stories, even the ones Pella assured Owen had been told a few hundred times already, weren’t only honed into the most fascinating, witty narratives imaginable, but imbued with a fresh-faced enthusiasm, as though Guert had just experienced it all five minutes ago and was dying to tell someone. It wasn’t so much a lie as a performance, and tonight that performance was possibly more necessary than ever. Guert might have only water in his glass, but he needed to convince a lot of people that their dashing college president was still very much alive and well and ready to lead Westish for years to come.

“O!” Guert had glanced around at the conclusion of his story, while his audience laughed and jumped in to comment. He beckoned. “I was just talking about you.”

The first time Owen had ever met Guert, it had been something of the same situation: a room full of older people looking at him expectantly, as the winner of the Maria Westish Award, and Guert the one warm and welcoming figure, shaking his hand and clapping his shoulder and giving his thoughts on Owen’s Foucault paper as though they were just two literary fans talking over coffee.

“What’s the name of that play of yours? The… open-plan office, plots, murder, potted plants?”

“ _An Unfelt Sorrow is an Office_ ,” Owen said. The Westish drama society had staged it during his freshperson year, with Jason Gomes in the lead. It had been an unprecedented achievement to convince them to perform any original script, let alone one by a new boy, even if he was sleeping with the star. Owen hadn’t touched the manuscript since. Jason’s fingerprints were all over it. But Guert had asked recently – had probably seen the posters around campus at the time – and he’d dug it up from under the guest towels at the back of the Phumber 405 closet.

Guert’s adoring fans looked on. Finally, a balding man with glasses coughed. “Yes, Sobel’s been very impressed with you. Owen Dunne, Owen Dunne… Can’t get him to talk about any other student from the last decade.” He looked Owen up and down. “I thought you’d be older.”

How old did they think he was? “Dr. Sobel’s very kind.”

“A very promising year for our students,” Guert said, resting a hand on Owen’s shoulder. “Remarkable achievements. Henry Skrimshander and Adam Starblind were the first Westish students ever to be drafted by Major League Baseball teams.”

A lady waved her hand dismissively. “And the last, I’ll bet. But that young man with the gorgeous amber eyes can come back any time and tell me how much they need funding.”

Perhaps it wasn’t such a surprise that Owen was dating Guert. Perhaps the surprise was that more of these older, richer Westish patrons didn’t have young lovers trailing in their wake.

“You should submit that play somewhere,” Guert said once they’d escaped a little from the throng. “I’m sure Sobel can help you.”

“Academics want different things than theaters do, Guert. It’s not so simple.”

“It might be. You can try.”

Owen reached to straighten Guert’s tie. “And you can finish your novel. That might be simple too.”

“A few more Westish students might get drafted before I draft that.”

“Resolution for the new year?”

Guert took a sip of water. “I strongly doubt you really believe in those things.”

“I don’t adhere to bread-based religions, Guert, but I believe Henry will be drafted again, Mike and Pella will be happy, you’ll finish your book, and I’ll… I’ll be here.”

“God, not _here_ , I hope.” Guert looked longingly over to where Pella and Mike were still holed up by the buffet. “No one can be expected to tolerate any more than a couple of these a year.”

“No one’s denounced me yet.”

A tap to a watch face. “It’s still early.”

The dinner itself didn’t go badly, although Mike and Pella were seated at another table among representatives of the science faculty and more minor donors. Owen sat by Guert, resolving to keep as quiet as possible while attempting to discern the vegetarian options among the various mysterious dishes delivered to their table by the too-efficient wait staff. That, though, was the spark for a conversation in itself - first with the elderly Swiss lady on his other side, who first inquired whether she could help him, and then enthusiastically launched into a history of her own quest for animal rights dating back to the 60s, her husband contributing nods and occasional positive noises until the inevitable: “And what do you do, Owen?”

It was tempting to claim his summer school experience as teaching credentials: come next semester he might really be a paid lecturer rather than a student. But that wasn’t a good enough reason to be sitting next to the president. Perhaps he should simply make up a story about being a Senegalese prince, not that Senegal even had princes, here to study and spend his family fortune. “I'm a senior in the English Department,” he said carefully, “and the beneficiary of one of your very kind scholarships. But my boyfriend brought me here tonight.” He lightly tapped Guert’s shoulder, distracting him from a conversation about new tax regulations, which Guert was always desperate to be distracted from anyway. “Guert, you know the Islers.”

“I do!” Guert’s smile was probably genuine. “Madame, I won’t hold it against you if you still haven’t forgiven me for my woeful German the last time we met.”

“Ah, none of us can blame you, dear Guert.” Mme Isler glanced once again at Owen. “Except perhaps for not introducing us properly. I hear all these scandalous rumors, you know.”

Guert was still smiling. “He’s not so very scandalous in person.”

“But of course. Such a polite young man. And so handsome! I think I might have a vacancy for a new grandson.”

Owen took the pitcher of water from the center of the table and refilled their glasses, nudging closer to Guert. “This isn't fulfilling my expectations at all. Surely _someone_ has to be horrified.”

“I think Bruce sent around a memo,” Guert said, entwining their fingers. “The horrified couples were all seated three tables away. Or decided not to come at all.”

The campus was about as dark as it ever got when they returned after a late night of discussions and gossip and handshakes. Owen had lingered in the background for the rest of the event while Guert was being suitably presidential, until he was snatched up by Bruce Gibbs who wanted him to convince a group of skeptical trustees about promoting the college's newly-acquired LGBT credentials on its official website.

Guert parked in his usual spot, and they walked hand-in-hand down the alley leading to the Small Quad. Few lights were on in the dorms and other buildings, although one shone from the upper floor of Scull Hall. It had begun to snow, settling lightly on the Melville statue, sparkling under the Quad’s lamplight. Their footsteps once more crunched on the pathway made by many feet during the day. They were alone.

Owen stopped by the base of the statue, looking up. Even with the lights, the sky above Westish was as dark as a thousand San Jose nights, the stars vivid points on an ink-black canvas.

“We should go camping sometime,” Guert said, leaning back against the plinth. “All five of us and the dog. You should experience a real, true night once in your life.”

“I think I’ll settle for imagining it. Civilization and I get along very well.”

Guert smiled, close to laughter, and took his other hand. “You wouldn’t like to make love out there under the stars, only you and I for miles?”

“I prefer a real mattress. Besides, this state of yours is overrun with bears, and not just the type that hits on me in bars.”

It was just a little bit tempting – not for the stars, or nature, or even the sex, but to see Guert out there in his Thoreauvian heaven, his eyes lighting up, reveling in every second. It was even more tempting to think about it while Guert was standing at the center of his college, wearing his best suit and Italian shoes, thick silver hair frosting over with snowflakes. But that thought, at its bottom, was mainly about getting Guert out of those clothes as quickly as possible.

“Thank you for coming with me tonight,” Guert said, hushed as though Melville himself might be eavesdropping.

Owen squeezed his hands. “It was fine, really. The food was good.”

“But you didn’t want to come.”

“And you didn’t really want to take me out for a fish fry that night, but you did. Despite being so pale and anxious I thought you might faint.”

Guert nodded. “It’s more similar than you might think. I was scared, O. Too scared, guilty, and ashamed to show you how I felt about you, and I came so close to dying without doing anything about it. And now... Even if they fire me, even if you leave, I can't pretend I don't love you. Not to you, and not to anyone."

“I think everyone knows.” Owen raised a hand to wipe snowflakes from Guert’s lapel. “I know.”

“Which means no more staying at home because other people might be offended or embarrassed. I don’t know how many Christmases we might have together. It might be just the one. So we have to make the most of it.”

Owen bit his lip. “If it’s two,” he said, finally, “can we go somewhere warmer next year?” 

Guert did laugh at that, laughed and kissed him with frosty lips. Owen kissed back, hands on Guert’s cheeks, tugging on his wet coat and wanting to say _I’m not leaving_ and _you're not going to die_ without speaking a word. If they'd been at home on the couch he would be unzipping Guert's pants by now, but this was already borderline inappropriate for the Quad. In daylight someone would be whistling and telling them to get a room. 

“You know,” Guert said by his ear, arms warm around him, “I never did have that glass of wine.”

They were greeted enthusiastically by Contango and wearily by Henry, who had been up and running almost as early as Guert that morning. In the absence of a TV in Guert's quarters, Henry had apparently spent the evening tapping at a baseball app on the phone Owen had finally convinced him to buy (or had in fact bought for him, once the contracts were worked out).

If Henry had been awkward and overawed in Guert’s presence before the heart attack, before the moment he grabbed the desk phone and dialed 911, it had all been much worse afterward. The last thing he wanted was to be thanked or hailed as a hero or anything that kept him from acknowledging how messed up his head had been beforehand. But he’d volunteered to walk the dog in the early days, to go shopping, to help clean up and paint and move into the Bremens’ old place. Where Mike had settled into a friendly camaraderie full of philosophy and football, Henry struggled to call Guert by his first name. Owen still didn’t know what they spoke about when they were alone.

“We’ll see you on Saturday,” Guert said, “for Christmas dinner.”

Henry nodded. He might have found a reason to spend the afternoon running instead. Owen grasped his arm. “Pella and I are doing a last-minute gift run tomorrow. I’ve got some vouchers I have to use, so you'd better come with us. Help to carry things.”

Henry had to have caught on to his ruse by now, but he nodded at that as well. Probably better to let Owen supplement his dishwashing income than have no presents to give. “You can call me,” he said, with a small smile. “I’ll be there.”

No matter how long Owen lived in the presidential quarters, it never seemed as though he would uncover all the alcohol Guert had stashed away in its dark recesses. “There’ll be more,” Guert said, opening up a new red once Henry had clattered down the stairs. “Much more. Everyone gives me scotch and wine for the holidays.”

“No chocolates? Fruit baskets? _Muffins?_ ”

“Maybe we can arrange a swap with the female faculty.”

Owen tended to agree. “I know Judy would appreciate it.”

They sipped wine on the couch, arms around each other’s shoulders. “I couldn’t have imagined this a year ago.” Guert rested his head against the top of the couch with a satisfied sigh. “Pella here, and you… Even the dog. All of us spending Christmas together. I never thought I’d have a real family meal again. Or gifts under the tree.”

“What do you want for Christmas, baby?” Owen stroked his hair, damp still from the snow.

 _A new heart_ , Owen expected him to say, but Guert only shook his head slightly. “I couldn’t ask for more.” He turned to meet Owen’s eyes. “Take me to bed?”

Owen kissed him softly and took the glass from his hand. “Just let me turn down the thermostat first.”


End file.
